At the premiere of "The Promise" in Los Angeles, star Christian Bale says the film's depiction of the massacre of Armenians during WWI speaks to current humanitarian crises around the globe. (April 13)

AP

Ara Topouzian will be playing the kanun, a 76-string laptop harp, before two screenings Friday of "The Promise" at Phoenix Theatres Laurel Park Place.

Ara Topouzian playing the kunan, a 76-string instrument that is used in traditional Armenian music.

Ara Topouzian playing the kunan, a 76-string instrument that is used in traditional Armenian music.

Courtesy Ara Topouzian

Originally, he was going to perform before a single screening at the Livonia theater. When it sold out in a few days, Topouzian was asked to do another mini-concert. That screening sold out, too.

On Sunday, the Phoenix Laurel Park will hand out free CDs by Topouzian (while supplies last) to those seeing "The Promise."

For the Farmington Hills resident, the music he plays on the traditional Middle Eastern instrument is more than entertainment. It's a living symbol of the history and culture brought to America and to metro Detroit — the largest Armenian community in the Midwest — by his ancestors.

"This is what they brought along with the clothes on their back," says Topouzian.

Oscar Isaac and Charlotte Le Bon in a scene from 'The Promise.'

Oscar Isaac and Charlotte Le Bon in a scene from 'The Promise.'

Jose Haro

Similarly, "The Promise" is more than a new movie at the multiplex. Starring Oscar Isaac, Christian Bale and Charlotte Le Bon and directed by Terry George (who helmed 2004's "Hotel Rwanda"), the $100-million film is a passion project financed by the late billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, an Armenian American and major automotive industry investor.

Kerkorian envisioned an epic movie about the Armenian genocide, which began during World War I and resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million people in what was then the Ottoman Empire.

Set against the backdrop of the impending genocide, "The Promise" focuses on a romantic triangle between an Armenian medical student (Isaac), an Armenian woman (Le Bon) and an American reporter for the Associated Press (Bale) and their struggle to survive. It's set to be released on 2,000 screens, a huge figure for an independent project.

In this May 5, 2008 file photo, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian is shown at the Oscar De La Hoya and ...more

In this May 5, 2008 file photo, billionaire Kirk Kerkorian is shown at the Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. boxing match at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Kevork Djansezian, AP

The opening is timed to the April 24 official commemoration of the genocide, a date chosen because it's when more than 200 Armenian intellectuals and prominent figures were arrested in 1915, imprisoned and mostly executed, according to the Armenian National Institute,

The movie has prompted buzz in metro Detroit's Armenian community. A Free Press report in 2015, the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, said there are roughly 15,000 Michiganders of Armenian descent.

The hope is that the film offers a moving, accurate portrayal of history that's not just for those whose relatives lived through it, but for everyone.

The power of visuals

"We are all hopeful that it's going to have an impact," says Hayg Oshagan, associate professor of communication at Wayne State University. "We live in a visual culture, and we're used to seeing things told to us on the screen. We just haven't had a telling of the genocide in this manner before. A movie like 'Schindler's List' or 'The Pianist' (which both dealt with the Holocaust) or any number of stories like 'Hotel Rwanda' (about the Rwandan genocide) have had an immense impact in getting people to understand, to learn about and to feel a tragedy like a genocide."

Oscar Isaac (center) in a scene from 'The Promise.'

Oscar Isaac (center) in a scene from 'The Promise.'

Jose Haro

Oshagan says the devastating events of a century ago help explain how tightly knit the Armenian-American community is.

"Almost everyone has a story of how their grandparents escaped or great-grandparents escaped. They wouldn't be here otherwise. This is something that ties everyone together. ... Beyond that, what connects everyone is the struggle to stay Armenian in faraway places. It's a common struggle, to keep the language, to keep the culture, to keep the history going when you are not in your own country."

Starting in fall 2016, it became mandatory for Michigan schools to add lessons about genocide to the social studies curriculum for grades 8-12, particularly regarding education about the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide.

The fact that Turkey, the modern successor to the Ottoman Empire, hasn't acknowledged the genocide (and that the U.S., a NATO ally of Turkey, has stopped short of using that word) is part of the painful legacy for Armenian Americans today.

Ara Sanjian, a professor of Armenian and Middle Eastern history and director of the Armenian Research Center at U-M Dearborn, hasn't seen "The Promise" yet.

"As a historian, I'm always very, very careful and always tell students that filmmakers can twist history, so nothing that you see on-screen is full history ... (But) we welcome it if more people are interested in talking about these issues. Certainly, most Armenians are really hungry for publicity."

Sanjian says that Armenians have been forced to "justify that it happened because of the consistent Turkish government denial. That has really left an impact, especially over the ordinary rank-and-file people. They feel very badly about it in the sense that, even a hundred years later, they still have to say: 'What my grandparents went through was real suffering. It was not a fabrication.' "

Just this week, the Promise Institute for Human Rights was announced by the UCLA School of Law, which is launching it through $20 million partially coming from "The Promise" box-office profits. All proceeds from the movie are going to nonprofit groups.

Also this week, the Washington Post reported that "The Promise," which hasn't generated that much entertainment media coverage, has received more than 60,000 ratings of one star only, the lowest possible score, on the popular IMDb.com site. According to the Post, Internet trolls on a Turkish message board tried to flood the site with bad grades.

A hobby turns serious

For Topouzian, as for many people in metro Detroit, being Armenian American comes with an obligation to preserve and share the culture. He cites a quote by author William Saroyan that appears at the end of "The Promise."

Saroyan's words were: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.”

Topouzian's full-time job is serving as the president and CEO of the Troy Chamber of Commerce. He devotes his spare time to his music, a hobby that has evolved into a prestigious second career.

Born in 1969, the Michigan native says he never had to be nudged by his parents to become interested in his Armenian heritage. At weddings and dances, his eyes would be glued to watching the performers who were playing traditional music.

While he did play the cornet in high school, Topouzian didn't start focusing on American and Middle Eastern music until after he graduated from college. He started off with percussion instruments and then gravitated to the zither-like harp with the multitude of strings. "I wanted something that was melodic and sort of different. I kind of fell in love with the sounds of the kanun."

The challenges of learning and playing a 76-string laptop harp are obvious. According to Topouzian, every three strings represents a note, not one string as with a guitar. Levers are used to set the scale. The kanun allows him to bend notes, as he describes it. "We're playing semi-tones. We're taking notes and bending them, not just natural notes, but flats and sharps."

Topouzian says Armenian folk music has been passed down without sheet music. He mostly taught himself how to play the kanun through practicing, with an assist from LPs. "My generation, you could listen to records and play along. By and large, that's really what I did."

He also got valuable lessons from other musicians, including a renowned kanun player from California, Jack Chalikian, whom he met through a music convention. "I would see him in a lobby of the hotel. He'd look at me and say, 'See you in my room in about 15 minutes.' He would take the time to teach me. If he was onstage playing music, he would motion for me to stand by him offstage and watch him do what he'd taught me that afternoon.'"

Topouzian has built a remarkable career as a solo and ensemble musician. His performances have been aired nationally in PBS documentaries. He has played with world music artists and renowned jazz and fusion artists. In 2012, he performed an original concerto for the kanun with the Virginia Commonwealth University Symphony.

In July 2012, he was awarded the Kresge Artist Fellowship for the Performing Arts. He says it was an important validation of his work as a musician.

Three years later, the centenary of the Armenian genocide hit him harder than he expected. It deepened his feelings that his music represents a cultural legacy that must be shared with future generations.

"I play music because I enjoy music." says Topouzian. "I play music so that I can help preserve history, so I can be one of the musicians that passes this down."